Little Good In Gun Bill, But Worth A Shot

August 15, 1988|By James Kilpatrick, Universal Press Syndicate

WASHINGTON — When the Senate gets around to its omnibus gun control bill, Ohio Sen. Howard Metzenbaum will offer a modest amendment. He would make it a federal crime for any person to sell or transfer a handgun without a seven-day waiting period before delivery.

If adopted, Metzenbaum's amendment would do little good, but it also would do little harm. As an effective deterrent against violent crime, especially in the drug trade, the proposal is an exercise in futility. As a deterrent against domestic crimes of impulse, it might suppress an occasional homicidal urge. The amendment is well-intentioned. That is the best that can be said for it.

As you would expect, the National Rifle Association sent around an emissary to testify against the Metzenbaum amendment. James Jay Baker, representing the NRA, made a persuasive case. Sixteen states now require a ''cooling off'' period as part of their gun control laws. Various scholarly studies have found no evidence that such laws have reduced violent crime at all. At least eight states in recent years have rejected the idea.

Another witness against the proposal, David B. Kopel, a former assistant district attorney in New York, spelled out some self-evident assumptions. The first of these is that no criminal ever would register his correct name and address with a gun dealer and then wait for a week while the police had a chance to check his record and thus avert the sale.

Larry Joiner, police chief in Kansas City, Mo., confirmed the objection. At violent levels of the drug trade, everyone has a firearm. One-third of these guns are stolen, another 25 percent or 30 percent have been obtained by swapping drugs for weapons, and the others have been obtained through fictitious identifications given to licensed dealers.

Have existing state laws prevented impulse homicides? No one really knows, because negatives cannot be proved. George Napper, Atlanta's commissioner of public safety, supports a waiting period. He cited a case this past April involving a woman who was angry at her supervisor and manager. On April 23 she bought a .38 pistol. On April 24 she shot both of them and then killed herself. Perhaps a week's reflection might have prevented the act. Or perhaps she might have bought a shotgun instead.

Most of the witnesses against the Metzenbaum amendment insist that any federal legislation on gun control violates the Second Amendment. These arguments are bogus. The amendment says, ''A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.''

The Second Amendment simply does not apply. Retired Justice Lewis Powell said as much a few days ago in a speech to the American Bar Association.

If it finally becomes law, it will create a vast deal of useless paperwork for police. It will sorely vex the NRA. It will please the gun-control lobby. It will make the members feel good. But let no one assume it will do much about violent crime.